19    ULTRA-PYROLYSIS SYSTEM FOR HAZARDOUS
WASTE TREATMENT
Chi S. Wang, President
Wangtec Incorporated
Woodridge, Illinois 60517
H. Ted Chang, Professor and Nan-Min Wu, Ph.D. Candidate
Pritzker Department of Environmental Engineering
Illinois Institute of Technology
Chicago, Illinois 60616
INTRODUCTION
Thermal treatment has been identified as one of the most effective methods of treating hazardous wastes.1 The off-site incinerator was ranked as the number one technology for the DOE's
hazardous wastes based on waste volume treated.2 When operated properly, incinerators could
achieve high efficiency in the treatment of toxic organic wastes.3 However problems arise due to
the characteristics of the combustion and improper operations. These problems include the production of the toxic by-products such as NOx and PICs (products of incomplete combustion such
as dioxins) that results from open air flame combustion. Also, the incinerators cannot readily be
scaled down economically to become mobile.
In order to improve thermal treatment processes especially for incineration, several systems,
such as Argonne's Unvented Thermal Process,3 Eco Logic Process,4 Closed-Loop Incineration
System,5 Wangtec's Ultra-Pyrolysis System,6 etc. have been developed. Among these systems,
Wangtec's Ultra-Pyrolysis System (UPS-2000) is a high temperature, non-incineration, thermal
destruction process. No air is required in the destruction process, therefore, no combustion derived toxic emission is produced. This thermal process uses plasma chemical reaction in a high
temperature environment to perform the destruction/dissociation in an ultra-fast reaction mode.
The UPS-2000 is an integrated multistage closed-loop treatment system for hazardous wastes,
such as polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs), heavy metals, acidic gases, etc. The UPS-2000 is a mobile, transportable unit which is excellent for emergency responses and on-site treatment needs. The objectives of the present work include: (1) to demonstrate the new hazardous waste treatment
technology of the Wangtec's Ultra-Pyrolysis System, (2) to evaluate the treatment efficiency of
the UPS-2000 for various principal hazardous organic constituents (PHOCs), and (3) to provide
references or database of a demonstrated mobile treatment unit for emergency response and on-
site needs.
SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
A schematic diagram of the UPS-2000 is presented in Figure 1. The UPS-2000 consists of two
major components: Evaporator and Treatment Center. The unit is small [6 ft x 7 ft x 8 ft] and the
flow path is short, but with full scale commercial capacity.
The UPS-2000 is normally, but not limited to, operation in batch mode. For each drum of
waste, the outlet valve (T,) is closed until the organic vapors and carbon monoxide concentrations are decreased to under the target regulatory levels. Then, the outlet valve is opened to release the treated gas stream to the atmosphere. The total (closed-loop) volume of the UPS-2000
(VT) includes the volume of all the pipings (V ) and the volume of the waste drum (Vd).
The function of the Evaporator is to utilize the recovered heat energy from the high temperature reactor to vaporize the organic wastes. These vaporized organic vapors/gases are directed
50th Purdue Industrial Waste Conference Proceedings, I99.S. Ann Arbor Press, Inc.. Chelsea. Michigan 48118.
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